A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

First case: Cheng Yan, male, 28 years old. Diagnosis: Post-traumatic stress disorder. Reason for admission: Violent tendencies following a severe head injury sustained during a boxing match.

The second case: The name is the online name of a random player, and the diagnosis is paranoia.

The third one—

Zhou Lang opened the third medical record and paused for a moment.

Patient Name: Zhao Qiang. Diagnosis: Severe paranoia with persecutory hallucinations. Reason for Admission: Claiming "something wants to kill me," and repeatedly attempting to escape from "non-existent threats."

Wow. Zhao Qiang's identity is actually quite fitting.

Zhou Lang closed the folder. The current situation was—he was a doctor, and Zhao Qiang and Cheng Yan were his patients. Han Yingying was an intern nurse, legally allowed to move around the hospital. Lin Man's status as an obstetrician/gynecologist was questionable, but she was at least part of the medical staff.

The man in the suit was assigned to the VIP fifth floor, which was basically isolated from everyone else.

Of the twelve people, besides the few he knew, the rest were assigned to be either patients or odd jobs. One person had a very special status—he was assigned as a "patient to be tested." The system described him as "admitted to the hospital due to an unknown illness and assigned as a subject for a new drug trial."

The man was a thin young man in his early twenties. He looked unwell when he came in, and his expression worsened after he learned who he was.

Zhou Lang remembered him. The identity of "to be tested" was either a trap or a key clue.

Dinner was served in the cafeteria on the first floor. The food was simple—rice, stir-fried vegetables, and a piece of meat that he couldn't identify. Zhou Lang ate quickly and then glanced around the cafeteria after finishing.

With twelve players, plus the hospital's own "staff" and "patients," there were about forty people sitting in the cafeteria. The non-player characters behaved normally, chatting and eating with each other, showing no signs of anything unusual.

But Zhou Lang noticed a detail—none of the non-player characters were using chopsticks.

They used forks.

Eating rice with a fork in a Chinese mental hospital.

Zhou Lang didn't say anything, and lowered his head to put his chopsticks back on the tray.

"Are you finished eating?" Zhao Qiang sat down with his plate, noticing Zhou Lang's empty plate. "You ate way too fast."

"Okay." Zhou Lang stood up and whispered in Zhao Qiang's ear, "Don't use chopsticks. Use a fork instead."

Zhao Qiang was taken aback. He opened his mouth to ask why, but seeing Zhou Lang's expression, he swallowed his question. He silently got up and went to the window to get a new fork.

Han Yingying was more clever than the rest of them. Zhou Lang saw from afar that she was already using a fork, and she ate very naturally, as if she was used to using a fork all along.

The man in the suit—whom Zhou Lang later learned was named Qian Shaojie—sat in the corner, untouched by the food in front of him, looking down on it as if the food owed him money.

"You call this a meal? I usually—"

"Shut up and eat," a passerby whispered. "Didn't you notice? Those nurses are watching you."

Qian Shaojie then noticed that there were indeed two nurses standing at the cafeteria entrance, their eyes fixed on him. He shrank back, picked up his rice bowl, and began to shovel food into his mouth.

We used chopsticks.

Zhou Lang saw it all but didn't say anything.

He didn't know this person and didn't intend to care about anyone's life or death. In an A-level dungeon, it's normal for a few people to die. The only people he could protect were Zhao Qiang, Han Yingying, and Cheng Yan, who seemed reliable at the moment.

After dinner, there was free time, ending at 8 PM. Zhou Lang used this time to take a walk around the third floor.

Besides the dormitory area, the third floor also has three consultation rooms, an archive room, and a locked room. The archive room was unlocked, and the cabinets inside were neatly organized with patient information.

Zhou Lang quickly flipped through several files. Most were normal psychiatric medical records, with unremarkable content. But in the bottom drawer, he found a manila envelope sealed with red wax and stamped with a seal: "To be opened by the Dean."

He didn't open it. Article 4 of the school rules states that the sixth floor is the dean's office, and one may not go there without being summoned. If this letter is related to the dean, opening it rashly might trigger the rules.

But he remembered the location.

The locked room had a sign that read "Laboratory" on the door. It had an iron door, no windows, and an electronic combination lock. Zhou Lang tried several common combinations, but none worked.

Give up for now.

When I got back to the dormitory, I ran into Lin Man in the hallway. She was leaning against the wall, repeatedly looking at the college rules.

"Have you found anything?" she asked.

"Some," Zhou Lang said, not going into details. "And you?"

"I went to the fifth floor." Lin Man adjusted her glasses. "The VIP ward area is indeed much better. But—"

"but?"

"Only one patient's room on the fifth floor is occupied, that's the one with the surname Qian. The rest of the rooms... are empty, but there are signs of use on the beds. There are also drool stains on the pillows."

"This means someone lived here before and only recently left."

"Or it may have disappeared recently," Lin Man corrected.

Zhou Lang glanced at her. This woman was more perceptive than he had imagined.

"Be careful tonight," he said, before returning to his room.

7:55. An announcement came over the loudspeaker in the corridor:

"Dear staff and patients, evening rest time is about to begin. Please return to your rooms before 8:00 PM. To reiterate—please return to your rooms before 8:00 PM."

The broadcast was given by a female voice with a calm tone, but when it was repeated for the third time, Zhou Lang noticed that the voice had changed.

The same content, the same tone, but the speaking speed was increasing. By the fourth time, it was so fast that a normal person couldn't keep up, as if the recording had been sped up. The fifth time—

Suddenly, silence fell.

One of the corridor lights went out and then came back on.

Zhou Lang closed the door.

There was a small nightlight on the bedside table, which he turned on. The warm orange light made the room feel less cold.

Eight to ten o'clock is considered "safe time." The hospital rules don't explicitly state this, but we can infer from the fact that "night rounds are from ten to eleven o'clock" that the real danger begins after ten o'clock.

Zhou Lang lay on the bed, closing his eyes to rest.

He was not asleep.

At 9:47, footsteps could be heard in the corridor.

It was very light, like walking in soft-soled shoes. One step, two steps, three steps... and it stopped in front of his door.

A shadow pierced through the crack in the door. Someone—or something—was standing outside his door.

Zhou Lang didn't move.

The shadow lingered at the doorway for about ten seconds, then continued walking. The footsteps faded into the distance, finally disappearing at the end of the corridor.

At 9:58, the second wave of footsteps began. This time it wasn't just one person, but many. The chaotic footsteps rose simultaneously from both ends of the corridor, growing denser and faster.

Then--

"clang."

A metallic clang came from somewhere, and all footsteps stopped at the same time.

Immediately afterwards, the broadcast came on again.

"It is now 10 p.m. The on-duty nurse is beginning her night rounds. Please cooperate with the examinations. Medical staff, please remain in your rooms."

Medical staff, please remain in your rooms.

In other words, he cannot go out between 10 and 11 o'clock. Going out would be a violation of the rules.